Fulminant hepatic failure (FHF) is a severe disease caused by varies etiologies and characterized by large area of liver necrosis. FHF patients mostly die over a short period of time. FHF patients treated by standard comprehensive medical therapy have more than 80% mortality. Currently, orthotropic liver transplantation is the only effective treatment and no other specific treatments are effective. Owing to the shortage of donor liver, many patients on the waiting list die before receiving the liver transplantation. It would be of great significance in the treatment of FHF caused by varies etiologies to find one or more cytokines which could suppress liver necrosis, rapidly induce host's liver tissue regeneration, function for a long period of time, and avoid potential side-effect. DLL4 cytokine is a type 1 transmembrane protein positioned on the cell membrane, which can act as a ligand to specifically activate Notch 1 and Notch 4 receptors.
Currently, DLL4 cytokine is often reported in the research areas of neoplastic disease, angiogenesis related disease, and cell proliferation and apoptosis.